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Encounter of three social classes of the England at the beginning of the century : the victorian capitalists (the Wilcoxes) considering themselves as aristocrats, whose only god is money ; the enlightened bourgeois (the Schlegels), humanistic and philanthropist ; and the workers (the Basts), fighting to survive. The Schlegel sisters' humanism will be torn apart as they try both to softly knock down the Wilcox's prejudices and to help the Basts.

In Edwardian England, three families - representing three classes - have an impact on one another. The central characters are middle class sisters Margaret and Helen Schlegel. Margaret befriends the seriously ill Ruth Wilcox, matriarch of the Wilcox family who have a country estate known as Howard's End. The younger Helen takes an interest in Leonard Bast, a working class clerk. As Margaret gravitates towards the Wilcoxes, eventually marrying Henry Wilcox after Ruth's death, Helen identifies more and more with Leonard and his wife, particularly after advice they've given him - originally from Henry Wilcox - turns out to be incorrect and for which Leonard pays a heavy price. The clash among them leads to tragedy.

In the early twentieth century London, the upper class Schlegel siblings - Margaret, Helen and Tibby - are liberal, straight talking people who indulge themselves in philanthropy and in discussions of the arts and literature. They begin an association with the similarly upper crust Wilcox family. The Wilcoxes - husband and wife Henry and Ruth, and their grown children - are in London temporarily from their Hilton country home, Howards End, which has long been in Ruth's family and where Ruth was born. Most specifically, a friendship develops between Margaret and the sickly Ruth. Their friendship is despite an auspicious past association between the two families, namely a doomed romance between one of the Wilcox's sons, Paul, and Helen, and the fact of the Wilcoxes being more conservative and pretentious in their outlook than the Schlegels. In this regard, the Wilcox children take after their father, the children who believe Margaret has ulterior motives in befriending their mother. In a similar vein, Helen does not much like the Wilcoxes beyond her past association with them. At the same time, the Schlegels also befriend a man named Leonard Bast, a poor clerk, who has what Margaret refers to as a romantic ambition in life, and who has a strong sense of doing the right thing as demonstrated by his marriage to a woman named Jacky, who he does not love but to who he feels protective. Helen in particular feels it is their obligation to help the Basts in whatever way they can. In their associations with the Wilcoxes and the Basts, Margaret and Helen take different paths to a common point a few years down the road.